Posts by Trevor_Pott

Re: broken hinge

Apple is curious. Their construction quality is better than your run-of-the-mill Dell, but nowhere near as high as Alienware. It's somewhere in Asus Republic Of Gamers territory. Now, stories of great support and crappy support abound, complicated by weird agreements with resellers that differ not only per reseller, but per jurisdiction.

When you deal with Apple, you aren't really dealing with Apple unless you buy it direct. Even Apple stores are under different agreements and constraints dependant on jurisdiction. The quality of service you get can be incredibly variable. Worse, they are completely immune to bad PR. They don't worry about it; they have zero attack surface.

"You're holding wrong?" Doesn't matter. Crap Maps drove you into an ocean? Feature, not a bug.

So Apple trundles along; mostly in favour of the milled masses because – overall – the RMA/end user support issues are the exception proving the rule. They can afford to ignore the existence of the support issues through sheer largesse, but also because these issues are reasonably rare.

What will be interesting is to see what becomes of Apple's retail and RMA support situation now that the exec responsible for so many bad incidents has been canned.

Re: "I advocate them for professionals"

We'll have to agree to disagree then. I've found plenty of things that those "mobile workstations" just aren't up to. I agree they have the docks that the Alienwares don't. That said, I've found plenty of apps that run far better on "consumer grade cards" than "workstation class cards." It's all about which apps you need to run. For many of the uses of my clients, the need for high-powered graphics, 2 disks and scads of RAM outweighs the dock.

Milspec is nice, but non-requisite. The M18x line copes with everything we throw at them just fine. That's really the hard part of all this though. Making absolute judgements about any product is going to be stepping in it. Proclaiming that you'd never advocate an Alienware to a professional client blocking out as significant chunk of the market as saying "Alienware solves all problems." Neither is true.

That said, I believe that the true market for "mobile workstation" class products is significantly reduced thanks to Alienware. Unless you need something very specific about the mobile-workstation class hardware specs, there is no compelling reason to go that route over Alienware. Alienware's support will meet or beet the best Dell has to offer anywhere else…and the total package will be far lower TCO for the performance.

Re: "I advocate them for professionals"

Except that I loathe the precision line. They are too expensive for the build quality, don't offer the graphics options I want...basically, they aren't the "well rounded" system my M18X is. That M18X *IS* a workstation. It does everything I need it to. The precisions...don't.

Re: You call that reliable?

I really do. There were a rash of bad hinges on the M15x and M17X that affected some low single-digit percentage of shipped systems. Alienware took care of all of them.

There are failed units shipped with any product. What percentage fail - and how they are delt with - are the determining factors of reliability in my mind. But yeah, that XPS is still going strong, and I still use an old 386 beater notebook as my personal journal system to this day. I fully expect my M18x to match or exceed those records.

Re: Dell

I can get a 10" tablet with a resolution higher than 1080p for $399. A 27" or better monitor with a resolution better than 1080p? $750 at least. #asdf

You know, the 2005/2006 Alienwares were gaudy. I agree with you wholeheartedly that they needed to "grow up." But I have zero qualms about my Alienware M18X as regards "professional" appearance.

Have you honestly given the new lineup a look?

I wouldn't be ashamed to be seen using an Alienware X51 with the lights off: http://www.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-x51/pd

Personally, I rather like my M18X compared to most 17" notebooks: http://www.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-m18x-r2/pd

With the lights off, I just don't understand what doesn't look "professional" about them. So yes, I advocate them for professionals. Case design and all. Tastes, of course, will vary.

Re: Flawless operation? Not a chance...

@easyk: 2005 was 7 years ago. Also, everyone had problems with Pentium 4s back then. You can hang on to predjudice if you'd like, but I think you're cutting out a good supplier for no reason excepting pride.

Re: Article reads like Paid Corporate Blogging and at odds with the comments on Dell's website!!

I don't think I qualify as "passionate about the brand." I like it because I don't have to fix the fucking things. Look, I do computers for a day job, right? The last bloody thing I want to do when I get home is futz around with some computer that's acting up. I want my video games to just work. I want my media to just play. I want all the little bits to work, out of the box, and keep doing that for years.

That's why I buy Alienware.

If I am passionate about something - other than abject lazyiness, which is a very important topic for me - it is the bullshitology of "consumer reviews." The hard science of the matter is that people bitch easily but rarely pay a compliment. If you are seeing a bunch of positive reviews about a product amidst the frantic whinging, then pay attention. This means either heavy astroturfing, or people who actually like the product so much they are overcoming the inertia of human nature to say nice things about a product.

I don't care if that's Alienware, Apple, Windows 8 or Science Barbie. There are entire PhDs full of science about group dynamics, cognitive dissonance and various individual cognitive biases. I'm not making this crap up (check Wikipedia for an actually decent overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias,) but I do study this stuff.

It's part and parcel of being interested in journalism. If I am going to offer objective an impartial news, reviews or analyses, I need to be aware of the various research into cognitive bias and be able to spot it in myself. (Self examination on this level borders on stumbling into Dunning-Kruger, but we'll bypass that for now.)

At the end of the day who is doing the reviewing matters far more than the volume, pitch or tone of the review. Is the individual capable of making judgements about hardware, software, etc? Do they have the expertise and experience, or – as per true Dunning-Kruger – do they lack the experience, but in lacking that experience also lack the knowledge to identify their own lack of knowledge?

What about business decisions? Are these people capable of understanding representative samples, making judgements about failure rates, total cost of ownership and so forth? Or are you seeing – as I deeply suspect – people deep in buyer's remorse, having overextended themselves and wished for something magical that never truly can be?

I have worked with hundreds of models of gaming notebook from about a dozen suppliers over the past 15 years. The Alienware systems coming out of that company today are the best of the lot I've ever had the pleasure to use, with the possible exception of those old Gen 2 XPSes.

You can try to call me "passionate" about a brand if you want. You'd be wrong. What I am passionate about is separating signal from noise. Amazon – no matter how invested you may be in it for your personal decision making – is nearly all noise. The statistical analysis you need to do on that site to extract signal is mind warping.

Far better to find people who shift these units in the hundreds and thousands and start talking about deployment strategies, failure rates and so forth. You get a far clearer picture, not only of the product and brand, but of human nature as pertains to bitching about things on the internet.

Re: Article reads like Paid Corporate Blogging and at odds with the comments on Dell's website!!

So you are basing your entire argument here off the fact that "only angry people post on a company website." Well holy crap, batman! Talk about a fundamental aspect of human nature! People complain loudly whenever they feel slighted, but most don't take the time out to heap praise upon a working product!

So yeah, I expect that if I say anything nice about any product, it would go against the bulk of the reviews written about it, especially in that company's forums. To say nothing of "why the hell are we discussing reviews on Amazon for a product that almost always ships from the Alienware.com website?"

Any product is going to have DOAs. Any product is going to have bad components. The relevant questions are "how many," and "how do they deal with them?" With Alienware, the answers are "low single digits of shipped units" and "excellently."

Remember also that Dell's consumer side has nothing at all to do with Alienware. They have different support teams, different corporate ethos, different build qualities and so forth. That is the entire point of this article: Alienware kept it's corporate ethos, but gained all of Dell's corporate oomph, supply chain, etc.

Their success and profitability by doing exactly what Dell themselves don't do is starting to turn heads at Dell and make people look at different approaches.

If you go out of your way to find something bad about a product or company, you'll find it. If you objectively compare Alienware to the competition, however, you'll find that they are first-class.

I'm glad you like your Samsung; first hand experience with them has taught me that they have awful customer service for that line of products. RMAs are like pulling teeth and I've had ~10% dead after one year. I think you might be engaging in some post-purchase rationalisation here, whereas I am attempting to discuss gaming notebooks as a function of sheer volume of units shipped and the helpfulness of support.

Anyone can have a bad experience or two. How a company handles those bad experiences is what determines their value as a supplier.

I like my LEDs. And they ship with a control panel software widget to turn them off...

Between my personal systema and the corporate deployments of these units, I've worked with over 2000 Alienware notebooks. There have been 3 RMA-class incidents (dead mobo), 2 stiff-hinge-death incidents, and a life lesson learned about AMD's inability to make good dual-GPU drivers.

Compared to every other system I've worked with - the $400 Samsung netbooks my wife and I have being the only exception - these Alienware boxes have had the lowest incidence of "it's dead, Jim." Hardware or software. That includes Dell's disposable consumer goods, HP, Asus, MSI, Sager, Samsung, Fujitsu, Sony, Eurocom, Acer, Lenovo...

I think I can speak from some experience on this one.

Re: Dell

Agree 100%. Dell notebooks are ****ing ass. Alienware, however, is not. While Alienware is starting to bleed into Dell at the high end, changing how they oprerate...I still wouldn't buy a Dell-branded notebook. Limited-time tat!

Re: Flawless operation? Not a chance...

m9700 sounds like a rebadged Clevo. Designed and deployed before the merger. Alienware didn't quite have the resojrces then that they do now. It sucks you had a bad experience, but that would have been 6 years ago. If you want to bear a grudge forever, you'll run out of vendors, eventually!

They are worth another look.

Re: Article reads like Paid Corporate Blogging and at odds with the comments on Dell's website!!

I've worked with - and continue to - every single brand of "gaming notebook" out there. They all have issues with the video drivers. That can't be laid at the vendor's feet; nobody is immune. If it makes you feel better, Alienware tries very hard to bring Dell's influence to bear on video card vendors to get them to fix their buggy crap. Some times they are more successful than others.

Overall, howevrer, Alienware has been a far more solid brand than any other I've worked with.

Re: "the closest thing you can get to indestructible"

The M11X was something Frank was really proud of. I suspect it will return, probably with Haswell's launch.

As to my "indestructable" claim: the new, magnesium-alloy-case ones pretty much are. That m18x of mine has taken a beating; it is bordering on "as much punishment as my XPS gen 2." Yeah, the older m15x and m17x systems had hinge issues. As the article says, however, they are good about replacements. Brand means more to them than recouping costs on 3-4% dead units. That's an attitutde I can get behind; few tech vendors care.

Re: XPS extinct?

You're joking, right? Modern XPS notebooks have almost nothing in common with their elder brethren, nor are they even close to Alienware specs. X40/X450- class video cards? Single hard drive? These aren't "gaming class notebooks," they're abominations that don't fit anywhere. They aren't "just business" - Intel i tegrated is fine for that and uber-casual gaming - and they aren't gaming rigs either.

No, the modern XPS notebooks do not deserve to bear that proud name.

Re: ... Sorry. Did I misread this as an article or piece of news?

One of the cool parts about writing for El Reg is that you get to talk to the people wbo make the products you use. Sometimes I talk loudly and with great irritation. Sometimes I have to restrain the fanboy.

Alienware is one of the few "brands" I like; and I like them not because they pay me to, but because they make great stuff. I'm odd that way.

Re: Agree entirely

Eurocom. Man, I remember those. There were a corporate staple notebook for us in the early aughties. Then Canadian distribution channels dried up and we started shipping Asus Republic Of Gamers boxes. Those things were awesome. I miss them.

Re: Too much too soon.

Sounds swank! Our rates are currently $60/hr if it can be done from the office during regular business hours, $125 for onsite or out-of-hours work.

I've ran Astlor Computer Systems as a sole-proprietor-style "printed some business cards and did some stuff" since I was 12 years old. The truth of the matter is that once I started writing for The Register, explaining the extra revenue to the CRA became so cumbersome I had to get the business set up properly.

Astlor was retired as a business name, though I retain is for my personal e-mail domain. We choose to use eGeek – another domain I owned – and went about setting things up properly. So yeah, I've gone through what you described, but this was the story of "from the moment we got the first official business licence."

In Canada, there are provisions for making "a little money on the side" without needing a full-bore business licence. A few grand a year doesn't get the CRA's hackles up so long as you declare the income. Do it too often – or start nosing up past $15K a year – and the CRA starts frowning at you.

Of course, once you get the business licence and get your GST number, this whole "paperwork" thing cascades and down the rabbit hole you go…

Re: The US work thingy......

Actually, I believe I mentioned B1 several times in these comments. There are many restrictions on B1, including what you intend to do, for how long, for whom, what your job title it, whether or not you are working for a company with offices in the US and what your education is.

Long story short: if you are a Canadian citizen, you can not do IT consulting on a B1 visa. If you find a customs agent willing to grant you entry on a B1 for this purpose, count your blessings, you probably will not receive a B1 the next time you try. They are supposed to require a TN or an H1-B for this purpose.

Believe it or not, NAFTA quite plainly does not allow the provisioning of any professional services on a B1. It must be done as a TN, or an H-class specific to that job type. We face more scrutiny than other nations, not less.

As to Americans visiting the US to do "work" in Canada, I've never had an American client denied entry because they are planning to do TN-class work and only applying for a B1. The same isn't true for those of us seeking to face-to-face with out American clients on their soil.

Re: They call themselves eGeeks but make their clients travel to them, One word...

We use Skype, but actually there are a dozen better programs that don't have Skype's issues. That said, there are several reasons to hold mini-conference-style meetings with clients. A lot of which boils down to doing "bakeathon"-style brainstorming, bashing through code updates in real time or even working with physical hardware tinkering.

I'd say that 90% of our communications are either phone or internet-based. That's bread-and-butter work right there. That 10% that absolutely must be in person – for practical reasons, or for the human need to gauge the other speakers – is the 10% that brings in the real money.

When you do really start doing meetings in the real world, I think you'll find that there are some things you just can't accomplish via telepresence. If the meeting can be done through Skype (or similar,) then it's really not an issue to be aware of, nor is it worth mentioning in an article to a bunch of Register readers, now is it? Mind your audience...

Re: other countries' treaties

Yeah, Canadians, not so much. Advising a company - including software debugging, I checked - is considered "computer systems analysis" and is thus immediately covered under "Trade NAFTA" as opposed to "B1". Goign to a conference is B1. Telling someone how to best set up their business computers is TN.

Sales is grey, and at the discretion of the person you are talking to...in Edmonton they seem hell bent on not granting B1 unless they can avoid it. In Calgary, you'll get a B1 with a smile and an "enjoy your stay." Really depends on which airport you fly out of.

Re: The US work thingy......

Again, if you are a Canadian and you own your business, and this business does not have a US branch then legally you need a visa to attend meetings. My understanding is that this is true of other countries' treaties as well. You can work around this by lying. If you are caught, you may be denied entry forever. Go ask your lawyer, I promise I've done an awful lot of research into this.

More bizzarely, with NAFTA, certain job categories re ieve more scrutiny than others. Canada got a raw deal...

Re: so what is an IT consultant?

That depends on which immigration official you talk to. Some call it management consultant, others "computer systems analyst." For some clients I'm a contractor...pushing buttons and fixing widgets. For others I serve an almost CTO role; setting strategy, handling subcontractors, vendors, etc on their behalf. For other clients, I write content. That runs the gamut of jobs titles, I should think.

We can't

If I am working for a company that has both Canadian and US offices, I can go to the US for meetings. If I have only a Canadian branch...I need a visa.

Re: Ahh

Old complaint, but COMPLETELY VALID. It's my beef with PowerShell as well. PHP.net is the reason I use PHP. The documentation is good, easy to navigate, all in one place, and contains examples on how to accomplish the most frequent tasks.

PowerShell is voodoo requiring Google because Bing isn't good enough to search the web for PowerShell documentation. *sigh*

Re: Now here's an idea

Actually, Microsoft have serveral research projects underway to make Windows more modular. The question is simply "do they ever see the light of day." That depends entirely on how much "status quo" they manage to ship, methinks.

Re: Oh god, save us from...

Aw, muffin! Did I hurt your feelers? Do you need a time out to have a manly cry in the corner? That's okay, we won't watch...at least not until it's done uploading to YouTube.

I understand that you have incorporated your favourite brand into your personal concept of "tribe." It's normal; it's natural! There's a lot of good science that explains the process; you shouldn't be ashamed that it occurs, only that you allow it to rule your interactions with the rest of the world. It's okay, there's still hope. If you visit a proper therapist, one day you'll be able to disassociate your sense of self worth from the products other people choose to use and advocate. You may be able to live a life where you only tie your sense of personal valuation to the products you personally choose to use!

It may be difficult for you to understand – but please try, I'm having my minions work up a colour-by-numbers book just for you – but I don't have any moral or ethical obligation to push your favourite products on the world. I don't have any moral or ethical obligation to tell people to do what "the majority" does, nor to stick with the status quo merely because it's the status quo.

If you want someone who will advocate Microsoft, teach you how to incorporate all things Microsoft into your life and otherwise champion the status quo over all comers, please don't read my articles. Instead, I heartily recommend the indomitable Peter Bright at Ars Technica. He's a far better writer than I, and completely, utterly infatuated with Microsoft.

You'll also like Ed Bott, so completely "on-message" that he just declared Windows 8 to be the new Windows XP. You should also follow The Register's own Tim Anderson on his personal blog.

These are the people you need to read. They will tell you things you want to hear. They will comfort you on a cold, CVE-2013-XXXX night. These are members of your tribe.

Whatever you do, do not under any circumstances read Mary Jo Foely, and for your own sanity don't read anything by me. You'll find my blogs clearly labelled. They say sysadmin blog. You don't even have to click. It is, in fact, your choice.

Until you can disconnect your sense of identity from the brands you have incorporated into your tribe, you need to avoid authors that raise your blood pressure. It's for your own health and safety, after all.

Cheers, and good night.

Re: What are the "under the hood changes that make it a fantastic improvement over Windows 7"?

Off the top of my head, this is what's in Windows 8 worth considering making the jump for:

1) Faster boot

2) Faster shutdown

3) Better hybrid resume support

4) Way - way - fewer IOPS in VDI mode.

5) Native USB 3 support makes me happy

6) Multimonitor support that is on par with the ATI widget in the CCC from ten or so years ago

7) Mobile broadband as a "first class" networking type. (Long time coming.)

8) Hyper-V

Obviously, they weren't enough to entice me, but they might be for others. From a raw tech side, Win 8 is a solid upgrade. It is critical if you are a VDI implementer.

Re: Agree largely, but...

Let me answer a question with a labratory test.

Hold you arms in front of you for 8 hours and make wild jesticulations. When you feel you can do this from 9-5 every single day, you're ready to use Windows 8 on the magical touch screen replacement of my 17" + 2x24" + 47" monitor setup.

Please try holding your arms out in front of you for 8 hours. Just for one day.

You'll have my answer when the excercise is completed.

Re: Here is how to get rid of the "Metro" design and return to the old-fashioned desktop

I concur; this doesn't work on my RTM VMs or physical system.

Re: Productive work

I get paid to know the latest OS. That way when my clients start deploying, I'm ready.

Re: Here is how to get rid of the "Metro" design and return to the old-fashioned desktop

Must try this...

Re: "since Netscape, when has Microsoft actively tried to prevent applications from working?"

That is a whole other story. Microsoft is a little pile of warring fiefdoms...

I'm starting to like Mountain Lion a lot. I also have Fedora 17 with Cinnamon as a potential candidate, and I am trying to learn Mint with Cinnamon. (There's a lot more mainstream support for Debian than RHEL.) Android ont he desktop is a real possibility if the x86 version ever gets born. I rather like Android, and can do all my legacy Microsoft stuff through RDP.

Overall, it's Windows XP/7 for now, with my next desktop likely a Mac and my next ultrabook likely Android.